Glashutte Original Sixties Chronograph, Bayab Gin, 'Slow Food, Fast Cars: Casa Maria Luigia – Stories and Recipes' by Massimo Bottura and Lara Gilmore, Adidas Adizero Prime X 2 Strung and Sony HT-AX7
Every year, Glashutte Original plays around with colours to create a limited edition watch under its Sixties collection. In the last eight years, it has done many vibrant dials, but this year the German watchmaker, which owns its own dial manufacture, has worked with a beautifully low-key dial.
The stone-grey dial has a rippled texture, with a darker tone around the periphery. The red gold hour markers are incised, the two Arabic numerals hark back to the 1960s, which has inspired the eponymous collection, and those red gold baton hands are filled with Super-Luminova. The 42mm case gets piston-style pushers and the sapphire crystal caseback reveals the self-winding Calibre 39-34 that has a power reserve of 40 hours. The watch ships with a dark blue textile strap.
$8,700
Africa has been sending out some stellar gins of late. Procera, made in the Kenyan highlands, is an absolute beauty, and so is, among many others, Hope Gin that is distilled from grape spirit. Bayab belongs in the same league. The gin is made in the midlands of KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, with fruit from the baobab tree along with juniper berries, rosemary, orange peel and coriander from across the continent. The faintly tangy baobab fruit imparts a “sherbet taste" to the gin that promises to be both zesty and subtly spicy.
$33
Massimo Bottura might be best known for his three-Michelin-star Osteria Francescana, in Modena, Italy, but he has also created other delights such as the Casa Maria Luigia, his country house which opened in 2019 to guests from across the world. Bottura set up the country inn with his wife Lara Gilmore who wanted to create an “Osteria Francescana with 12 rooms”. Their book, which features over 80 recipes from Casa Maria Luigia’s kitchen, offers a peek into life at the country estate in the heart of Emilia-Romagna. It is languid and sunny, with a 7,000-record music room, the chef’s classic car collection, and lots of Parmigiano Reggiano.
$59, Phaidon
Serious about running? You might want to take a closer look at the latest from Adidas. The Adizero Prime X 2 Strung, designed outside the confines of race regulations, features a stack height of 50mm and a double carbon-infused plate system.
The midsole has three layers of foam, the most in any Adidas running shoe, and the outsole is made of a compound developed by tyre maker Continental. The strung upper expands in key zones in the forefoot and has “layered strengthening” in the midfoot and heel, says Adidas.
Rs 29,990
There are many reasons to love Sony’s battery-powered, wire-free Bluetooth speaker system. The modular HT-AX7 is a story in three parts: a base unit that functions as a sound bar and two smaller satellite speakers that can be positioned around the listener to drench them in 3D surround sound.
Sony, which prefers to call it a portable theatre system, says the HT-AX7 deploys an algorithm to upgrade stereo to surround. The speakers connect magnetically to the base to charge when they are not in use, and the system comes with over 30 hours of battery life, with a quick-charging feature that delivers 2.5 hours of juice with a 10-minute charge. TBA
